European Parliament to vote on declaring climate emergency

BRUSSELS - The European Parliament is preparing to vote on Thursday, November 28 on a resolution to declare a climate emergency in Europe and on a global level, based on a proposal by the liberals of the Renew Europe (RE) group.

The Conference of Presidents has put the text on the agenda of its plenary session next week in Strasbourg.

"The next five years must be a game changer for our climate," said RE President Dacian Ciolos.

He said the first 100 days of the next European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen "will be critical to deliver the right level of ambition for the Green Deal" of Europe. "Tabling this motion to declare a climate emergency in Europe, we send a clear signal: The Green Deal will not only be a list of regulations, it's a project for our generation, where Europe needs to show leadership and make a real difference to the health, environment and livelihoods of our citizens”.

Read the ANASMED story - “European Parliament to vote on declaring climate emergency.”

Councillors need to show leadership

We call on Greater Shepparton City Council to declare a climate emergency.

Not just because other local governments across Australia and internationally have followed this course, but because we as a region based on agriculture and primary industry have much more at stake than urban-based governments if opportunities are missed or decisions are poorly considered.

This is not a radical move, as Greater Shepparton City Council is in many ways implementing accepted initiatives of a climate emergency plan; however, in our judgment, it lacks the public leadership of councillors.

Declaring a climate emergency is essential to focus the region’s attention on mitigating and adapting to climate change.

It targets two critical areas: first, to inf luence state, national and global actions to reduce carbon emissions as quickly as possible; and second, to ensure our region is focused on adapting to climate change.

Greater Shepparton City Council can by leadership inf luence state and federal governments to adopt the strategies and policies required.

Greater Shepparton City Council can show leadership to the community and industry to ensure that we focus on adapting to climate change in every consideration or decision made, whether that is personal, in business or on the land.

Councillors need to show leadership and focus our efforts and resources on adapting our region by being alert to change and taking up opportunities.

We cannot achieve this with division — division over the science, division about the politics and division at various levels of government.

Read the letter from John Pettigrew, Robert McLean, Terry Court published in The Shepparton News on October 11, 2019 - "Councillors need to show leadership".

Corbyn launches bid to declare a national climate emergency

Labour will this week force a vote in parliament to declare a national environmental and climate change emergency as confidential documents show the government has spent only a fraction of a £100m fund allocated in 2015 to support clean air projects.

 Jeremy Corbyn campaigning with Labour activists for
the local elections in Peterborough on 27 April

Jeremy Corbyn’s party will demand on Wednesday that the country wakes up to the threat and acts with urgency to avoid more than 1.5°C of warming, which will require global emissions to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching “net zero” before 2050.

The move will place Conservative MPs under pressure to back the plan, or explain why they refuse to do so, now fears over the combined problems of air pollution and climate change have risen to the top of the political agenda.

On Saturday night Corbyn said the recent wave of protests were “a massive and necessary wake-up call” that demanded “rapid and dramatic action, which only concerted government action and a green industrial revolution can deliver.” He said that if parliament backed the move and became the first national legislature to declare a climate emergency it would “trigger a wave of action from governments around the world”.

Read the story from The Guardian by Toby Helm - “Corbyn launches bid to declare a national climate emergency.”

Make climate crisis top editorial priority, XR campaign urges BBC

Climate campaigners are calling on the BBC to declare a climate emergency and make the issue its top editorial priority.

 Extinction Rebellion came to prominence last month when its
members occupied and closed five central London bridges.

In a letter published in the Guardian, the new civil disobedience group Extinction Rebellion (XR) says the BBC, “as a respected media voice in the UK, needs to play a key role in enabling the transformative change needed”.

The group came to prominence last month when it organised the largest civil disobedience protest seen in the UK for decades, culminating in the occupation and closure of five bridges in central London. Since then it has grown rapidly and XR branches have sprung up in more than 35 countries.

In the letter, a version of which will be delivered to the BBC on Monday, campaigners request a meeting with the director general, Tony Hall, to “discuss how the corporation can tell the full truth on the climate and ecological emergency”.

Read the story from The Guardian by Matthew Taylor - “Make climate crisis top editorial priority, XR campaign urges BBC.”

Scott Pruitt’s dirty politics

How the Environmental Protection Agency
became the fossil fuel industry's best friend.

One afternoon last April, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, travelled to the Harvey Mine, in Sycamore, Pennsylvania, to declare that the agency had a new direction, which he called “Back to Basics.” It was an unusual place for the nation’s chief steward of clean air, land, and water to set out a policy agenda. Consol Energy, the owner of the Harvey facility, which is part of the largest underground coal-mining complex in North America, has been fined repeatedly by the E.P.A. for violations; in 2016, it had to pay three million dollars for having discharged contaminated wastewater into the Ohio River and its tributaries. Past E.P.A. administrators have spoken of creating jobs as a welcome potential by-product of the agency’s work, especially if they are green jobs, but creating or protecting energy jobs is not supposed to be the mission—protecting human health and the environment is. As the speech that Pruitt gave at the mine demonstrated, he seems to have these priorities reversed.

Pruitt, who is forty-nine, looked cheerful, as he generally does at public appearances. (He declined my requests for an interview.) Unlike many people who have joined the chaotic Trump Administration, he seems unconflicted about his new role, his ideological and career goals fitting together as neatly as Lego blocks. The former attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt ascended politically by fighting one regulation after another. In his first year at the E.P.A., he has proposed repealing or delaying more than thirty significant environmental rules. In February, when the White House announced its intention to reduce the E.P.A.’s budget by twenty-five per cent—one of the largest cuts for any federal agency—Pruitt made no objections. His schedule is dominated by meetings and speaking engagements with representatives of the industries he regulates. He has met only a handful of times with environmental groups.

Read the New Yorker story - “Scott Pruitt’s dirty politics.”